Battle Royale (Remastered)

by Koushun Takami, Nathan Collins

  "Could be." Shinji was considering what to write next, when Yutaka jotted something instead.

  [ What's your plan?]

  Shinji nodded, then gripped his pencil.

  [Actually, I've been waiting for something to happen since my failure this morning.}

  Instead of writing, Yutaka responded with a tilt of the head.

  [An announcement that the game has been suspended. I'm still waiting now.}

  With a look of surprise, Yutaka tilted his head again. Shinji gave him a smirk.

  [Before I told you all that stuff, when I first broke into those computers in the school, the very first thing I did was search for the backup copy of all their files. That, and their virus-scanning software. I found both right away. Before I downloaded anything, I infected both with a virus. An insurance policy.}

  Yutaka's lips formed the word, "Virus?"

  Shinji thought, C'mon, Yutaka, forget you can write too?

  [My thinking was that if they realized something was wrong, they would either scan their files or restore them from a backup, and my virus would spread into their system. It would be chaos, and the game wouldn't be able to go on]

  Yutaka nodded several times in admiration. The next bit Shinji wrote knowing it was only a waste of time, but he wanted to anyway.

  [I designed the virus myself, and it's badass. It's like if athlete's foot could spread through the air, only 100x worse]

  Yutaka grinned as he fought to keep from laughing.

  [Once it gets going, it'll wipe all their data, then play "The Star-

  Spangled Banner" on infinite loop. With how much those bastards despise the American Empire, it'll drive them nuts.]

  Holding in his laughter, Yutaka now had one hand on his stomach and the other over his mouth. Even Shinji had to struggle to keep from bursting out.

  [Anyway, when they discovered my hack, I thought they'd have to repair their files. Then this game would have to be suspended. But that hasn't happened yet. That means they only performed a cursory check. I guess it makes sense. I never did get to messing around in their main files.]

  Shinji said, "Wanna start with a thorough sweep?"

  "But wouldn't that be dangerous?"

  "Yeah, but we have a gun, so . . ."

  [ That brings me to my plan. I'm going to make them have to recover their files. Then they'll trigger my virus.]

  Shinji pulled over the PowerBook 150 and showed Yutaka the document he'd been scrolling through—a text file with forty-two lines. His download had been interrupted, but of all the files that had made it through intact, this was the one he thought to be most important. The document was in plaintext, and at the beginning of each line ran a sequence, starting with "MOI" through "M21," then "F01" through "F21." Each was proceeded by a ten-digit number resembling a phone number. These too were consecutive. Each line ended with another, seemingly random, sixteen-digit number. A single comma delineated the three fields. The file had a cryptic name: guadalcanal-shiroiwa3b.

  Yutaka wrote, [ What? What's this?]

  Shinji nodded. [I think these are the numbers that control our collars.]

  Yutaka nodded deeply as if to say, Oohhh, I see.

  MOI would stand for student number one of the boys (Yoshio Akamatsu), and F01 would stand for student number one of the girls (Mizuho Inada, that somewhat kooky girl).

  [ This is only my theory, but I think the collars work like cell phones. Each has its own number and its own pass code. I think the operators use the same numbers to detonate the collars. Therefore] Shinji paused, looked at Yutaka, then continued, [if my virus destroys their data, and this file in particular, then we won't have to worry about our collars blowing up. The virus keeps spreading deeper, so even if they have a backup file somewhere, it won't help them. If they have the numbers written down by hand somewhere, that might be trouble, but even then, their whole system won't be functioning, so we'll have bought ourselves some time.]

  Shinji said, "What if we flung pebbles at anywhere that seems suspicious? Anyone hiding would come running out."

  "Hold on. . . What if it was a girl, and she let out a big scream? Wouldn't that be dangerous for us—and for her? Well... if she wasn't one of the bad ones, I mean."

  "Hmm."

  Yutaka wrote, [How will you make them trigger it?]

  Shinji nodded. [On your way out of the school, did you see that room with all the soldiers?]

  Yutaka nodded, and Shinji continued, [Did you peek in and see the computers in there? Do you remember that?]

  Yutaka's eyes widened, and he shook his head. [I couldn't a-f-f-o-r-d to.]

  Shinji chuckled. [I took a good look while keeping an eye on those bastards. They had a whole long row of desktop computers and one large server. One of the soldiers looked different from the others though. He had a]

  Wait, what was the kanji for "insignia"? How am I supposed to be able to write that?

  [symbol on his uniform that made him out to be a computer technical officer. That means what Sakamochi said is true: the computers that run this game are inside that school. That's why we're going to attack the school and at least]

  Shit, another I don't know.

  [make them think we damaged the data. If we can assemble the proper ingredients, we can actually destroy the physical computers.]

  Shinji interrupted his writing to pretentiously spread his arms like a magician after his trick. Then he returned to the paper.

  [ We're going to bomb the school. Then we escape by sea.]

  Now Yutaka's eyes really popped. He mouthed, "Bomb?"

  Shinji grinned. "We might want to find some real weapons first. You're not going to be able to fight anyone with that fork of yours."

  "Yeah . . . right."

  [ What I really need is gasoline. I think there was a gas station at the harbor, but we can't get there anymore. I'm sure there must be several cars on the island. I don't know if they've still got gas, but finding out's our first step. At worst, we can use diesel too. We also need fertilizer.]

  Yutaka raised his eyebrows as if to ask, Fertilizer?

  Shinji nodded, then tried to write the name of the fertilizer he needed, but yet again he didn't know the right kanji. Maybe he had gotten too used to typing in his word processor. Oh, well. At least I know the name of the compound. That's good enough.

  [It's for the ammonium nitrate. Who knows if we can find it. But with that and gasoline, we can make a bomb.]

  From his pocket, Shinji took out the knife and its attached cylinder and displayed it for Yutaka.

  [Inside this is a blasting cap. A detonator. Why I have it is a long story, so I'll skip it. What matters is that I have it.]

  Yutaka seemed to think for a moment. Then he wrote, [Your uncle?]

  With an embarrassed smirk, Shinji nodded. With how Shinji went on and on about his uncle, Yutaka seemed to have formed his own image of the man.

  Yutaka wrote, [But how are we going to smash a bomb into the school? We can't get near it. Are we going to make a giant slingshot with some trees or something?]

  Shinji chortled. But no, that wouldn't be accurate enough. If they could keep firing, a slingshot would be fine, but with only one detonator, they only had one chance.

  [A rope and pulley.]

  Yutaka opened his mouth as it to say, Ohhh.

  [Basically, a ropeway. We can't go near the school, but the mountain on our side and the flat lowland on the other side are still open.]

  Shinji turned over the map to show Yutaka. Then he flipped it back over.

  [ We'll run it from the mountains to the plain. No, that's wrong. We'll secure the lower end first and then pull the rope up to the mountain. I think we'll need a full 300m of rope. Then we pull the rope tight and send the bomb sliding down on a pulley. When the bomb's over the school, we cut the rope. Or just let it go slack. Our own special slam dunk.]

  Yutaka bobbed his head up and down in renewed admiration.

  Shinji said, "It'll be easiest to find weapons i
f we start looking while it's still daylight."

  "Yeah . .. you're right. It'll be easier than finding our classmates."

  [ That'll be best for our work too. I feel like I saw a pulley in a well somewhere. We can collect the gasoline from cars. The trick will be finding rope and fertilizer, especially rope that long.]

  For a moment, the two boys fell silent, but quickly Yutaka wrote with enthusiasm.

  [But it's the only way, right? Let's go for it.]

  Shinji nodded. [If everything goes well, the bomb might take out Sakamochi and his men. But like I wrote just before, all we have to do is make them think we damaged their data. That way]—he pointed at his collar—[they won't be able to kill us with these.]

  Yutaka wrote. [ Then we'll escape to the sea?]

  Shinji nodded.

  [But I can't swim good.] He meekly looked at Shinji. [Either way, at swimming speed we]

  Shinji stopped Yutaka's hand and wrote, [ Tonight's the full moon. We'll use the tidal current. I worked out the timing. If we do it right, the tide will move us at 6-7 kph. If we swim as fast as we can, it won't take us twenty minutes to get to the nearest island.]

  As if his wide eyes weren't enough to fully express his admiration, Yutaka shook his head. [But what about the guard ships?]

  Shinji nodded. [For sure, we'll risk being seen. But those bastards rely on those computers so much, I think the ones on the ships probably aren't keeping a close watch at all. They're already spread too thin with only one ship in each direction. That's how we'll get through. Anyway, once the computers are down, they won't know where we are. The ones on the ships will have to look for us with their own eyes. Even if the government is using satellites, their cameras will be practically worthless at night. And we won't have to worry about our collars blowing. We'll have a chance to escape.]

  [It still won't be easy.]

  [I have an idea about that too.]

  Shinji reached inside his daypack and pulled out a small walkie-talkie, another item he'd picked up inside one of the houses.

  [I've been thinking about making some adjustments to this to increase its output. It shouldn't take much doing. Then, once we get somewhere far enough at sea, we'll send out an SOS. We'll say we were on a fishing boat that capsized or whatever.]

  Yutaka's expression brightened. [That might do the trick. We'll get some ship to come save us.]

  Shinji shook his head. [No. Even those idiots in the government would catch on to something like that. But we'll give them a false location and swim in the opposite direction.]

  Yutaka shook his head again. He even bothered to write, [Shinji, you're awesome.]

  Now Shinji shook his head and grinned. "All right then," he said, checking his watch. It was already four in the afternoon. "We'll move in five minutes."

  "Okay."

  Shinji dropped his pencil. He never usually wrote that much, and his wrist had started to hurt. The underside of his map was covered with enough writing to fill a computer's network log file. (He much preferred typing over writing by hand. If only Yutaka knew how to type, they could have used the 150.)

  But then he picked the pencil back up and added, [I can't say it's a great plan. Our chances of getting out unharmed are slim. But it's all I could come up with.]

  He shrugged and looked at Yutaka.

  Yutaka grinned and wrote, [ We'll do what we have to.]

  22 STUDENTS REMAIN.

  Seated among the thick vegetation on the southern slope of the northern mountain, a boy peered into his hand mirror and ran a comb through his thick hair to neatly arrange his pompadour. Since the game had started, he might have been the only one in his class—even including the girls—to feel he could afford the luxury. But this came as no surprise. Despite his rugged features, he paid an excessive amount of care to his appearance. You see, he—the boy who, for a reason known to very few in Class B, was called Zuki by his friends, or rather, at this point he had been so called, anyway, this boy was . . .

  . . . queer.

  As for his location, relative to some of the other students, he was nearly two hundred meters due west from where until recently Shinji Mimura and Yutaka Seto had been hiding, and roughly six hundred meters northwest from Shuya Nanahara's trio in the clinic. This put him just up the mountain from the farmhouse where Shuya had witnessed Hirono Shimizu shoot Kaori Minami. If he looked up, he would see, bathed in the light of the sunset, the observation deck where Yumiko Kusaka's and Yukiko Kitano's corpses were still sprawled.

  This boy smoothing down his hair had seen Yumiko's and Yukiko's bodies, along with that of Kaori Minami. And not just those. Kaori's corpse had been his seventh.

  Ugh, gross. There's still a grass leaf stuck up there. This happens every time Ilie down.

  He brushed out the grass with his pinky, then looked in the mirror at the bushes twenty meters down the slope behind him.

  Still sleep-ing, Ki-ri-ya-ma-kun?

  The boy's thick lips twisted into a smile.

  Aren't you being careless? Well, not even you would ever guess that the boy you failed to kill is right here watching you.

  But it was this "queer" holding a mirror and a comb who hadn't shown up at Kazuo Kiriyama's meeting place, thus escaping his slaughter, and was the only surviving member of the Kiriyama Family— Sho Tsukioka (Boys #14). And indeed, inside those bushes below was Kazuo Kiriyama, the boy who had already finished off six students since the game's beginning. He hadn't moved in more than two hours.

  Sho returned his gaze to his own reflection. As he scrutinized his complexion, he recalled how his fellow Family member Mitsuru Numai always got on his case for calling Kiriyama "Kiriyama-kun." Mitsuru had said, "Hey Zuki, you've gotta call the boss Boss," or something like that. But the fearless Mitsuru never quite seemed to know how to handle this "queerboy," who casually tossed him a lascivious look and said, "Don't be so sensitive. It's not very manly." Mitsuru made a sour expression and muttered something or other, but dropped the issue after that.

  Call him Boss, huh? Sho thought, inspecting his own left eye and then his right. But you got killed by that Boss of yours, didn't you? Because you're a total moron.

  Sho Tsukioka had been more cautious than Mitsuru Numai. Just before his death, Mitsuru had wondered if Sho had sensed Kiriyama's inner darkness, but he hadn't really. Sho had always held the basic belief that in this world, betrayal could come at any time. In that manner, compared to Mitsuru, a ruffian who tried to fight his way out of every problem, Sho, who'd been in and out of his father's gay bar since he was little, therein catching glimpses of the adult world, was the savvier of the two.

  When Sho left the school, he didn't head directly for the meeting point on the island's southern tip. Instead, he took a course slightly inland, ducking from tree to tree. His way took more effort, but it only cost him ten extra minutes at the most.

  He saw it from the woods overlooking the shore. Atop the outcropping, which rose from the ocean to split the beach in two, lay three bodies—two in boys' uniforms and one in a sailor fuku. Inside a hollow in the rock, shaded from the moonlight, Kazuo Kiriyama stood motionless.

  Mitsuru arrived almost immediately. Then, on those blood-soaked rocks (the smell of it reached all the way to where Sho hid), after exchanging a few words with Kiriyama, he fell prey to that machine gun.

  Oh my, Sho thought. This is trouble.

  By the time he began following Kiriyama, walking away from the scene, Sho had already settled on his subsequent plan.

  In this game, Kiriyama was undoubtedly the favorite for the finals. Sho couldn't hear what Kiriyama and Mitsuru had said, but whatever it was, as long as Kiriyama was playing the game, he would almost certainly outlast his opponents. On top of that, he carried that submachine gun (was it his, or had it belonged to one of the three he'd killed?) and Mitsuru's pistol, along with who knew what else. Sho figured that anyone who tried to take Kiriyama head-on would never win.

  But Sho Tsukioka possessed one set of abilities in which
he was confident: slipping into somewhere he wasn't supposed to be, catching people off guard to steal something, or even tailing someone (when he found a boy he liked, he was a serial stalker)—basically, all things sneaky. Hey, who are you calling sneaky? How rude. Besides, the weapon he'd pulled from his daypack was a two-shot .22 caliber High Standard Derringer. Though its magnum cartridges could probably inflict a fatal wound at close range, the pistol was not suited for a gunfight.

  Then the idea came to him. Granted, Kazuo Kiriyama was barreling straight for the victory. But if along the way he were to face his match—probably that Shogo Kawada or maybe Shinji Mimura (now he's my type}—and if this foe were armed, Kiriyama would surely emerge with at least some injury. And all that fighting would pile on the fatigue.

  In that case, if Sho managed to follow Kiriyama to the end, then at that final moment, he could simply shoot Kiriyama from behind with the Derringer—right when he drops his guard at his last kill. Surely Kiriyama would never imagine someone would try to follow him— especially the boy who stood him up at the meeting point.

  This way, in this game of killing their classmates one after the other, he could survive without having to sully his hands. This aspect was by no means rooted in logic; he had merely thought, I don't want to kill an innocent kid. Where's the elegance in that? Leave all the killing to Kiriyama-kun. I'm just following him. If he happens to kill someone while I'm there, it's not like I could stop him. That would be dangerous. When I kill him at the end, it'll be in self-defense. Why, if I don't, he'll kill me. That about summed it up.

  Tailing Kiriyama provided another benefit. If Sho stuck to Kiriyama's path, he wouldn't have to worry much about being suddenly attacked. And even if he did, all he had to do was escape the initial assault, and Kiriyama would respond to the commotion. If Sho could hide himself quickly enough, Kiriyama would deal with the attacker for him. This was, however, a course of events he hoped to avoid, because if he was unable to follow Kiriyama afterward, his plan would fail.

  After deliberation, Sho decided he'd maintain a fixed distance of twenty meters between himself and Kiriyama. This meant that when Kiriyama advanced, he'd advance, and when Kiriyama stopped, he'd stop. Sho also had to take the issue of forbidden zones into consideration.